


Last Days of Sunlight

by Carrionflower



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Dead Space AU, Eventual Smut, Hyperviolent Shiro stomping around in guts and stuff, M/M, Monsters/Aliens, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regular Dude Shiro in Very Unregular Circumstances, Shiro & Pidge friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 15:45:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8333293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrionflower/pseuds/Carrionflower
Summary: “Pilot error” was the official explanation for the USG Ishimura’s disappearance over Kerberos, and Shiro and his crew had been sworn to secrecy. The job was eerily simple: Find the corpse of the Ishimura, see if you can bring any of its systems back online, and get yourselves back home.Shiro and his crew -- some of the best pilots and engineers in the Sol system -- were the right choice for the mission, and the CEC knew it.Later, Shiro would realize that they’d also been picked because no one would miss them when they were gone.[Dead Space AU.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a deeply self-indulgent AU with 1) very little loyalty to Dead Space’s timeline or lore and 2) a whole lot of bullshitting due to lack of technical knowledge. I have but a simple dream, and that dream is a blood-spattered Shiro dismembering dudes with a plasma cutter.
> 
> The first few chapters have a distinct lack of Keith, but he'll stumble his way in here soon.

Shiro bent over the console, hammering buttons with blood-slick fingertips, breathing hard and blinking sweat out of his eyes, cursing brokenly as his fingers slipped on the keys and he had to start the authentication process over a second time. A noose of panic tightened around his throat, breath whistling in the echoing silence.

Something clattered in the vents above him and he swung backwards, pulse rifle trained on empty air.

The beam of his flashlight quaked in his unsteady hands.

_I’m not going to die like this._

_I have to make it through this. I have to go home. I have to._

_I have to._

_I’m not going to die --_

To his left, a panel in the wall bowed outward and then burst, spilling a wretched, twisted mass of limbs. Discolored entrails dragged like wet ropes along the floor.

Choking on fear and recycled air and the smell of rot, Shiro fired.

 

\---

 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

 

\---

 

Artificial sunrise was hard to get used to, no matter how many times he woke up to it. Shiro fumbled in the fluorescent dawn light, eyes half-closed, groping for the _off_ button that would let him sink back into darkness. He knocked something off his cluttered table and swore, voice hoarse with sleep, before he gave up and hoisted his legs over the side of his bunk.

The floor was warm, and he was nearly naked, covered in a thin sheen of sweat. His quarters were close to the ship’s engine so he was used to the constant heat; he almost didn’t mind it at this point. The pneumatic hum of its thrusters swelled and ebbed like a massive, mechanical lung, or the heartbeat of a great beast. It lulled him to sleep every night even as he’d kick his blankets off.

The _Kellion_ wasn’t a large ship, only big enough to hold a skeleton crew: Garrett -- better known by his nickname Hunk -- was their senior ship technician; Lance, primary pilot and security officer; Pidge, technologist; and Shiro, secondary pilot and systems engineer.

The four of them had been working together for the better part of a year under the CEC, usually on minor, routine freight missions. Only rarely did more tempting opportunities like recon or exploration ever cross their path -- but when it did, they leapt at the chance, which was how the _Kellion_ ended up out in the middle of fucking nowhere floating through the airless dark of deep space.

He jumped as someone pounded on his door.

“Shiro!” Hunk said. “Get your ass up or Lance is gonna eat your breakfast for you!”

Shiro tugged on his vest and boots and jogged out the door to the kitchens, where he grabbed a cup of coffee and a plate of watery eggs before heading across the corridor to the bridge. Lance was there, spinning in slow circles in the pilot’s seat.

“Hey, big man,” Lance said. “We’ve got news.”

Shiro sipped the awful coffee and raised an eyebrow. “Good or bad?”

“Real good.” He swung his chair around with a wide grin. “We found her.”

“ _What?_ Already?” Shiro stepped past the control consoles to peer out the wide porthole, and he nearly dropped his cup. Sure enough, there she was, massive size apparent even from a distance, a hulking shadow against the haze of Kerberos’ atmosphere. The _Ishimura_.

_Holy hell._

Earth’s greatest hope -- now little more than a hollowed-out husk. The ship itself was dark, long and narrow and surrounded on both sides by reinforced prongs that acted as impact dampeners. To Shiro, it looked like a massive ribcage stripped of flesh.

The USG _Ishimura_ had been the first CEC ship built for the sole purpose of plumbing the depths of space to harvest an astoundingly powerful energy source called quintessence. Once humans had sucked the Earth dry of every possible resource, they’d scrambled into space, leaving the dying planet behind. To hear the CEC tell it, quintessence had been humankind’s savior, the solution to every possible problem. A single canister of refined quintessence could power the entire lunar colony of Titan -- some six million people -- for up to two years. A thimble of the stuff fueled warships and merchant vessels alike.

In short, quintessence was incredibly fucking valuable, and also incredibly fucking difficult to collect, buried deep in the innards of alien planets.

The _Ishimura_ solved that. The ship was what was known as a planetcracker, equipped with a warp drive that could fling it to the recesses of space in a heartbeat, and a pair of immense gravity tethers that could pull apart asteroids, debris fields, and even small planets in an endless hungry search for quintessence. It also carried a two-kiloton drill, the very thing that gave it the name _planetcracker._

It was the pride of the CEC for decades until it was replaced by smaller, specialized modern vessels that were simpler to pilot and cheaper to maintain. From what little Shiro knew, a few years back the _Ishimura_ had been relegated to simply patrolling the fringes of space, turning asteroids to dust. Hardly noble work for what had once been the flagship of the CEC’s fleet.

Its diminished reputation meant that when the _Ishimura_ disappeared, it did so with a whisper rather than a shout. Despite being staffed by over two hundred bodies, the planetcracker dropped off the map.

CEC kept the news so tightly sealed not even Shiro had heard about it -- until the _Kellion_ was enlisted for a search mission.

“Pilot error” was the official explanation for the _Ishimura_ ’s disappearance over Kerberos, with no further elaboration given; Shiro and his crew had been sworn to secrecy upon penalty of astoundingly steep legal repercussions. The job was eerily simple: Find the corpse of the _Ishimura_ , see if you can bring any of its systems back online, and take yourselves back home.

“What about the people on board? The crew?” Shiro asked. “Why aren’t we being provided with rescue and medical personnel?”

The answer was polite, firm, and evasive. “That’s not part of your job.”

Truthfully, there was no better pilot than Lance, and no better engineers than Shiro and Hunk. Pidge could breathe life into anything with wires and a hard drive. They were the best choice for the mission, and the CEC knew it.

Later, Shiro would realize that they’d also been picked because no one would miss them when they were gone.

 

\---

 

Hunk’s mouth was a flat line of anxiety. “Easy, Lance. No power on the ship means the docking bay --”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Lance said. “Relax. You know I got this.”

“Something something _tailor,_ right?” Pidge said, gnawing on a chunk of jerky, her one indulgence in space. She brought a crate of it on the ship every time they launched, stowing it under her bunk and sharing strips of it with Hunk while they worked.

They were drifting into the _Ishimura_ ’s long shadow, a speck of inconsequential dust in comparison. Every porthole, every monitor was filled with its black bulk, and Shiro watched in awed silence, sweating in his heavy RIG exosuit.

Lance dipped the _Kellion_ ’s nose slightly, heading in closer, constantly checking and re-checking his orientation. Hunk stood vigil over his shoulder, arms crossed, while Pidge zipped herself into her RIG and calibrated it, checking the functionality of its kinesis mod by picking up Shiro’s discarded mug of coffee off the floor without touching it.

She looked up and grinned at Shiro, opening her mouth to say something, when the whole ship jolted violently and the cup shattered against the far wall. Pidge stumbled and Lance cursed in surprise.

“I told you to be _careful,_ ” Hunk bellowed.

Lance struggled to right them again but the ship kept juddering, dragged on some invisible current. “I didn’t hit anything!”

“Hunk, you told us she was dead! No power!” Shiro said, but Hunk only stared at him in confusion. Bracing himself against the console, Shiro pointed at one of the monitors in front of Lance.

They were getting pulled into the _Ishimura_ ’s collection bay by its twin gravity tethers -- what the planetcracker used to capture and crush asteroids. He could already feel the _Kellion_ rattling hard like it was close to coming apart at the seams, alarms screeching over their heads.

“We have to break that hold!” Pidge cried.

“Shiro, I could _really_ use your help,” Lance pleaded, and Shiro slid into the seat next to him, hurriedly tweaking controls and hammering their thrusters. The whole ship whined in complaint against the strain, shaking uncontrollably and still on a fast descent straight into the belly of the _Ishimura_.

There was no way they would be able to pull away from those tethers, and Shiro knew it. He buckled himself in.

“ _Hold on!_ ” he shouted grimly.

When they hit the floor of the collection bay, the ship bounced like a ragdoll. Shiro’s head rocked forward and ricocheted off the console, making his vision swim. He reeled, squeezing his eyes shut, teeth rattling. Hunk swore at the top of his lungs behind him.

The _Kellion_ groaned ominously, metal screaming on metal, while endless alarms howled.

And then they stopped.

Shiro opened one eye and then the other, exhaling shakily. There was blood on his forehead, warm and unpleasant. He muted several of the alarms but his ears kept ringing.

“Everyone okay?” he croaked.

“What,” Lance said shrilly, a little hysterical, “the fuck _._ What the _fuck._ Those gravity tethers don’t activate without user input! Someone just pulled us in! To _kill_ us!”

“Lance…” Pidge groaned.

Hunk scrubbed a hand across his face, hauling himself to his feet. “Okay, so the CEC’s estimation was wrong,” he said, wincing as he struggled to catch his breath. “The ship _does_ still have power.”

Wiping the blood off his brow with a sweaty palm, Shiro blinked away lingering vertigo before he spoke.

“And it has survivors.”


	2. Chapter 2

Inside, the _Ishimura_ was pitch-black, the darkness heavy and choking, and Shiro kept his flashlight trained on the floor as he walked. Pidge was right behind him, so close that her toes occasionally caught the heel of his mag boots. She didn’t like the dark.

“Hello?” Lance called. His voice echoed, muffled behind the helmet of his RIG. “Anybody home?”

“Let’s get patched up, take a breath, and assess the damage to the _Kellion_ ,” Hunk said as they stood outside the empty flight lounge. “First things first, we gotta get some lights going.”

“Yes, please,” Pidge said, sounding uncharacteristically small.

Shiro raised his hand. “On it.”

The beam of Lance’s light swung in circles. “I don’t understand,” he murmured. “We hailed the _Ishimura_ almost a dozen times before we tried to board. No response. Nothing. If the crew is still here, why wouldn’t they acknowledge it? Where _is_ everyone? And why would they turn those fuckin' tethers on us?”

“Let’s find someone and ask ‘em,” Hunk said. Eternally pragmatic. “Lance, you’re point. Pidge, stick to me.”

“Yessir,” Lance said, striding past the group, eyes alert.

Shiro broke off in the other direction, flashlight held between his teeth as he scanned the wall for a fuse box. His search took him down the corridor and out of sight of his team; when he found it, he popped the face off and flicked the switches experimentally, but -- unsurprisingly -- nothing happened. The problem was deeper.

His comm feed crackled. “Anything?” Hunk asked.

“No,” Shiro said apologetically. “Probably gonna need to restart the generator for this section of the ship, once I figure out how to access the maintenance level.”

No power meant no elevators; to get out of the cavernous collection bay, they’d had to climb hundreds of feet of ladders and stairs.

Navigating the hallway slowly and carefully, Shiro spotted a covered ladder shaft that would take him deeper into the ship. Sucking in a reluctant breath, he hoisted himself into the cramped, claustrophobic tunnel and took the rungs as fast as he could; no matter how many times he tried to get used to small spaces, it always made his lungs constrict and his skin prickle. But, if nothing else, Shiro was an expert at biting the bullet.

He kept descending, counting each level, lips moving silently.

003.

002.

000.

He’d reached the terminus at the heart of the _Ishimura_. There was nowhere else to go. Head aching as he exhaled in relief, he swung his legs out of the shaft; his boots landed on steel grating, the sound deafening in the unusual silence. It seemed to roll down the long tunnel and echo back to him over and over, like phantom footsteps.

The ship’s generators were even larger than Shiro had expected and twice as old as he was, ancient machinery that he was only barely familiar with, but that didn’t deter him. Thin vials of quintessence fed each generator, viscous stuff the color of an old bruise, and most of the vials were at least a quarter full -- more than enough to keep the ship in working order for several years. There was no reason for any of the generators to be shut down.

“None of this makes sense,” Shiro mumbled as he approached the flickering master terminal and initialized start-up for the whole aft sector. With a sound like an awakening beast, multiple generators came to life; he watched the power levels spike, dip, and then stabilize.

“Hunk,” he said, “lights should be coming on any second now.”

Under a layer of static, Hunk replied, “You’re back already? That was fast.”

Shiro raised his voice to be heard over the electric hum of the generators. “Nah. Got a few more sectors to power up, then I’ll meet you in the flight lounge.”

“You -- what? You’re still down there?” Hunk paused. He sounded uncertain. “Then who the hell is pacing in the corridor?”

“Uh,” Shiro said.

Hunk’s feed dropped out.

“Hunk?” Shiro narrowed his eyes, a tendril of dread curling around his throat. He switched to open comms. “Lance. Pidge. Everything all right?”

Nothing.

“C’mon,” Shiro said, pushing away from the terminal and doubling back to the freight elevator, first at an uneasy walk, and then breaking into a run. “Hey! Somebody give me a status!”

A burst of feedback almost deafened him and suddenly Lance was in his ear, gasping. “Shiro! Stay below!” he barked. “Stay below!”

“What the fuck is going on?” Shiro demanded, ignoring the order. The panic in Lance’s voice made his stomach twist and he hammered the call key harder, the elevator beeping at him in annoyance.

The echo of gunfire traveled down to him even from three floors above and his heart stopped in his chest.

No time. He couldn’t wait for the elevator. Shiro sprinted back to the ladder shaft and crawled inside, pulling himself up the rungs, breathing hard, calling their names over the radio desperately. The tunnel pushed in around him on all sides and his vision tilted.

000.

“Hunk! Lance! Anyone! Talk to me!” he begged.

001.

He heard shouting. He climbed faster.

002.

Hunk’s voice reached him over comms. “Jesus,” he said, wheezing. “Jesus. Fucking _Christ._ What the hell _is_ that --”

“Don’t move, I’m almost there,” Shiro interrupted him.

“ _No_ \-- Shiro --”

“Run!” Lance cried, voice so loud it almost blew out the mic. “Run and don’t stop!”

“I’m not leaving half our team behind!” Hunk protested.

“We don’t have a choice,” Lance snarled.

_Half our team._

“Where’s Pidge?” Shiro asked, his arms burning with exertion. “ _Where is Pidge?_ Answer me, goddammit!”

003.

Shiro tumbled out of the ladder shaft, landing hard on his knees and scrambling to his feet. The lights were on and the air recyclers running with a pleasant, low buzz. He bolted through the corridor and skidded into the empty flight lounge.

Spinning in a circle, he called out for his crew, but the place was empty. No sign of them, save for several bullet holes embedded in the wall and a violent spray of something wet, dark, and sticky.

Above him, he heard a clatter and a scrape; he tipped his head back so fast he stumbled, but the noise was _in_ the ceiling. Like a body was moving in the vents. Slow and uneven.

Shiro took a step back, and then another, eyes still trained over his head.

“--to the _Kellion_!” Lance’s radio broke in, shouting in Shiro’s ear and making him startle. “Shiro, where the hell are you?”

“Flight lounge,” Shiro said quietly, carefully. “Tell me where Pidge is.”

“You need to get the hell out of there!”

“Tell me,” Shiro repeated, each word heavy in his mouth, “where Pidge is.”

“Shit -- she ran. I don’t know where -- she just -- when it came out of the vent, she just bolted, and we lost her.” Lance’s composure rattled and for a moment all of his years of experience fell away to reveal the rawness of his fear. “I emptied seventy-five rounds into that fucking thing and it was still… God, Shiro, it looked almost human, but it _wasn’t._ I’ve never seen anything like --”

Shiro switched off Lance’s feed, his voice dying mid-sentence, and tapped Pidge’s frequency. “Pidge,” he said -- then again, pleading. “Pidge, I’m coming to get you and getting us both out of here. Tell me where you are.”

Static.

“Katie.”

Her quivering voice was barely more than a whisper. “Medical,” she said. “Level 005. Don’t take the elevator, Shiro. They’ll hear you.”

There was a thump and a wet crack from somewhere above, like a bone being broken through split flesh.

He didn’t have a gun. Lance was the only one who came armed.

“Okay,” he breathed to Pidge. “Stay there.”

One step backward. Two steps. Three. Out the door, into the corridor; stepping as silently as he could in his heavy RIG, he took the ladder shaft up.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Shiro said softly. “We’re gonna make it to the _Kellion_ , find the others, and get the fuck out. The CEC can deal with whatever the hell is on this ship. I don’t even want the goddamn paycheck.”

004.

“What if we don’t? What if she can’t fly?” Pidge asked.

Shiro kept doggedly climbing. “Hunk and I can--”

Something hit the ladder shaft with a screech and the whole structure shook, rattling Shiro inside the tunnel. His hands slipped on the rungs and then he was falling, heart in his throat, fingers scrabbling desperately.

He caught himself with one hand, shoulder screaming in protest and feet kicking against empty air, until his boot caught a rung and he wrapped his whole body around the ladder.

“Fuck,” he gasped.

It was climbing up the outside of the shaft. He could hear it scraping and clawing.

_Go. Go, go, go._

The pain in his shoulder made his eyes water but he clenched his jaw and pulled himself upward as fast as he could, faster than the thing that was dragging itself behind him outside the tunnel. He couldn’t see it, but he could track its position by the noises it made: the wet, horrible gibbering and a sound like fingernails digging against metal.

005.

With a desperate heave, Shiro threw himself out and rolled along the floor, crawling on his elbows and knees for a moment before he regained his balance. The walls were marked with plaques directing him -- _left, left, medical wing is left_.

He turned sharply and there, in his peripheral vision, he saw it.

He almost didn’t realize it at first. He couldn’t understand what he’d seen, because he’d never seen anything like it before.

Its silhouette was broken, misshapen, limbs rearranged grotesquely. Its mouth stretched straight up like a zipper-seam of teeth splitting its skull, jaw hanging loose and swinging, while what had once been hands at the ends of its arms had forked off into jagged growths of gnarled bone. A third hand protruded from a cleft ribcage, fingers grasping hungrily, pulling out chunks of its own meat in stringy knots.

Shiro stumbled and choked on a terrified shout, then broke into a full run.

“Pidge!” he cried. “I’m in medical! Where do I go?”

“Stop making so much noise!” she hissed.

“Too late,” he told her. “Where are you?”

“Surgery. Two lefts. _Hurry._ ”

 _One._ Shiro skidded around the corner and bounced off the wall, kept running. _Two._ When he turned again, he glanced over his shoulder -- but it wasn’t behind him. Nothing was chasing him. The corridor was dead silent aside from the wheeze of his breath inside his RIG’s helmet.

A fluorescent yellow banner was strung over the doorway into the surgical wing, spattered with dried blood.

_Construction Underway. Please Use Caution!_

He ducked beneath it and saw Pidge peeking out from beneath a gurney, half-hidden by a soiled sheet. His heart leapt in relief.

She reached out for him and he reached back, seeing in clarity the next 90 seconds of his life: he was going to grab her hand, pull her down the corridor to the ladder, get them both back to the _Kellion_ , and get out.

With a screech and clatter, one of the vents in the ceiling blew out, and Shiro realized that thing _had_ been chasing him -- but it had been moving over his head. It landed between them, grasping for Shiro and clapping its jaw. Blade-like bone fingers caught on his RIG, gouging it.

Pidge screamed and Shiro tumbled backwards, landing hard on his ass, the back of his head knocking against the floor. She wriggled out from beneath the gurney and grabbed a tray of surgical instruments, flinging them at its back.

“ _Go!_ ” Shiro shouted at her, kicking his feet and pushing himself back along the ground, away from its reach. The hand dangling from its ribcage was in a frenzy now, clawing and tearing its own flesh in madness, unspooling its entrails.

Thinking through his panic, Shiro activated his RIG’s kinesis module and used it to pick up one of the heavy steel exam tables, yanking it through the air and smashing the creature in the back of the head hard enough to shatter bone; it howled like a rabid animal, misshapen head crushed against the wall. Shiro rolled away before it -- and the table -- hit the floor where he’d been sprawled only a second ago.

He jumped to his feet and sprinted into one of the operating units, slamming the door shut behind him and breathing so hard he felt like his lungs would burst. Pidge was nowhere to be seen.

“You okay?” he gasped.

Over the radio, she answered, just as breathless, “I’m okay. I -- I ran pretty far… I don’t know where I am.”

The operating room was a mess, covered in tarps, cables, and power tools but cleared of medical supplies. Shiro swung around quickly, looking for anything he could use to defend himself.

Atop a workbench, he saw a mess of screwdrivers, paper, and something that looked like a gun: a plasma cutter. His personal favorite welding tool, capable of cutting through six inches of steel or cracking open mineral deposits for mining operations. He grabbed it with trembling hands, checked its cartridge -- loaded -- and fired a bolt of ionized plasma at the wall. It sheared a jagged, bright-hot hole right through the metal, leaving a trail of curling smoke in its wake.

He almost laughed out loud.

This? This would work.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured to Pidge. “I’m coming.”


End file.
